Gable next, our neighbor of many years.

She had watched the three of them leave.

“All smiles,” she told me, shaking her head.

“Your brother was going on about finally traveling like rich people.

I asked after Walt, and your mother just shrugged and said he was sleeping and didn’t need anyone bothering him.”

I did not call my mother that day, or scream at her down the phone, or fire off the furious message every cell in my body was writing.

I understood, even in the first raw hours, that rage was exactly what she knew how to handle.